Harold B. Hairston ( December 8, 1939 - November 1, 2016) served as the first African-American Fire Commissioner for the Philadelphia Fire Department from 1992. Hairston was appointed head of the fire department by Mayor Ed Rendell and served until retirement in 2004. In his next life, Hairston worked for the CBS network Eyewitness News team as an expert on public safety and the Philadelphia Fire Department. He died at home in West Mount Airy on Tuesday, November 1, 2016. [1] He was 76 years old. [2] With his wife, Anne, Hairston had three children, and was married for 41 years.
His career with the Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD) spanned 40 years. [3] He joined the department in 1964 after three years in the Army. During that time he was assigned to the West Point Army Academy as a weapons instructor. After being one of the first blacks to integrate the PFD, he was promoted to Fire lieutenant in 1971 and captain in 1978. He made battalion chief in 1981 and went to deputy chief in 1986. Two citations for lifesaving rescues were awarded to his unit and the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs named him Fire Chief of the Year in 2003, [4] and the National Fire and Burglar Alarm Association also named him Fire Official of the year in 2003. [5]
After contentious consent decrees were mandated on the PFD to correct previous discriminatory promotion practices, [6] it was held in the black Philadelphia community that the position of Fire Commissioner would go to an African-American. Hairston was followed by Lloyd Ayers, an African-American, and the position was temporarily held by acting chief Derrick Saunders after Ayers retired. However, in 2016, newly elected Mayor Kenney replaced the Acting Fire Commissioner and native Philadelphian Derrick Sawyer with his own choice, breaking a 24-year tradition of native black Philadelphians being appointed to the position of fire chief of the 2,500 strong department. [7]
Hairston served on various boards such as the American Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the Delaware Valley Burn Foundation, the Police Athletic League, the Variety Club of the Delaware Valley and the Dad Vail Regatta, but the interest that continued long after his retirement was Fireman's Hall Museum, which has a tribute organized in his memory. [2] He was also a member of The Valiants, a fraternal organization of black and Latino firefighters, and the IABPFF. [8]
He is buried in Ivy Hill Cemetery, 1200 Easton Road, East Mount Airy. [1]
Francis Lazarro Rizzo was an American police officer and politician. He served as commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) from 1967 to 1971 and mayor of Philadelphia from 1972 to 1980. He was a member of the Democratic Party throughout the entirety of his career in public office. He switched to the Republican Party in 1986 and campaigned as a Republican for the final five years of his life.
The Philadelphia Police Department is the police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the County and City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The PPD is one of the oldest municipal police agencies, fourth-largest police force and sixth-largest non-federal law enforcement agency in the United States. Since records were first kept in 1828, at least 289 PPD officers have died in the line of duty.
Mount Airy is a neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
Willie L. Williams was the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1992 to 1997, taking over after chief Daryl Gates' resignation following the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Williams was the first African-American Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department and the first African-American Chief of the LAPD. During his term as Chief of the LAPD, he tried to create a positive image of the department and close the rift created between the police and black neighborhoods by the violent arrest of Rodney King in 1991.
The Philadelphia Fire Department provides fire protection and emergency medical services (EMS) to the city of Philadelphia. The PFD's official mission is to protect public safety by quick and professional response to emergencies and through the promotion of sound emergency prevention measures. This mandate encompasses all traditional firefighting functions, including fire suppression, with 58 Engine companies and 29 Ladder companies as well as specialty and support units deployed throughout the city; specialized firefighting units for Philadelphia International Airport and the Port of Philadelphia; investigations conducted by the Fire Marshal's Office to determine the origins of fires and to develop preventive strategies; prevention programs to educate the public in order to increase overall fire safety; and support services such as: research and planning, management of the Fire Communications Center within the City's 911 system, and operation of the Fire Academy.
James J. Kenney was the first fire chief in the city of Berkeley, California. He oversaw the mechanization of the department in 1914, the first in the United States west of Mississippi.
The International Association of Black Professional Firefighters (IABPFF), founded in 1970, is a fraternal organization of black firefighters. It represents more than 8000 fire service personnel throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, organized in 180 chapters.
Eden Cemetery is a historic African-American cemetery located in Collingdale, Pennsylvania. It was established June 20, 1902, and is the oldest existing black owned cemetery in the United States. The cemetery covers about 53 acres and contains approximately 93,000 burials.
James Francis Kenney is an American politician who served as the 99th mayor of Philadelphia from 2016 to 2024. Kenney was first elected on November 3, 2015, defeating his Republican rival Melissa Murray Bailey after winning the crowded Democratic primary contest by a landslide on May 19.
A refinery owned by Gulf Oil Corporation in Philadelphia, located at Girard Point on the Schuylkill River in South Philadelphia, caught fire on Sunday, August 17, 1975. This incident grew into an 11-alarm fire, not brought under control until 24 hours later, and resulted in the death of eight firefighters of the Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD), injuries to 14 other firefighters, and the loss of four PFD vehicles.
The Vulcan Society, founded in 1940, is a fraternal organization of black firefighters in New York City.
The Stentorians are a fraternal organization of African American firefighters, based in Los Angeles, California, and founded in 1954.
Arthur "Smokestack" Hardy was a volunteer fire fighter, photographer, black fire historian and collector of fire memorabilia. He was the first African-American firefighter in Baltimore, Maryland. There is a museum of his collection of fire related artifacts in West Baltimore curated by Guy Cephas, a fellow Retired Auxiliary firefighter. Baltimore has named one of their fire stations after him.
The Vulcan Blazers, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is an African-American fraternal organization representing more than 300 full-time professional fire fighters and paramedics. They are an advocacy organization which has been assisting African American Fire Fighters since 1970. Having formed an outreach with members of the Fire Fighting profession statewide, the membership is over 300 and still growing.
The Valiants of Philadelphia is a fraternal society of Black and Latino firefighters in Pennsylvania, with the mission of encouraging urban youth to pursue public safety careers and promoting public safety and fire prevention through education.
The history of African Americans or Black Philadelphians in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has been documented in various sources. People of African descent are currently the largest ethnic group in Philadelphia. Estimates in 2010 by the U.S. Census Bureau documented the total number of people living in Philadelphia who identified as Black or African American at 644,287, or 42.2% of the city's total population.
John W. Mosley was a self-taught photojournalist who extensively documented the everyday activities of the African-American community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for more than 30 years, a period including both World War II and the civil rights movement. His work was published widely in newspapers and magazines including The Philadelphia Tribune, The Pittsburgh Courier and Jet magazine.
The George Floyd protests and riots in Philadelphia were a series of protests and riots occurring in the City of Philadelphia. Unrest in the city began as a response to the murder of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. Numerous protests, rallies and marches took place in Philadelphia in solidarity with protestors in Minneapolis and across the United States. These demonstrations call for justice for Floyd and protest police brutality. After several days of protests and riots, Philadelphia leadership joined other major cities, including Chicago in instituting a curfew, beginning Saturday, May 30, at 8 p.m. The protests concluded on June 23, 2020.
The 1985 MOVE bombing, locally known by its date, May 13, 1985, was the destruction of residential homes in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, by the Philadelphia Police Department during a standoff with MOVE, a black liberation organization. Philadelphia police dropped two explosive devices from a helicopter onto the roof of a house occupied by MOVE. The Philadelphia Police Department allowed the resulting fire to burn out of control, destroying 61 previously evacuated neighboring homes over two city blocks and leaving 250 people homeless. Six adults and five children were killed in the attack, with one adult and one child surviving. A lawsuit in federal court found that the city used excessive force and violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Roland Ayers (1932–2014) was an African American watercolorist and printmaker. He is better known for his intricate drawings – black-ink figures of humans and nature intertwined in a dream-like state against a neutral backdrop. A poet and lover of jazz and books, he expressed his poetry through images rather than words, he often noted, and considered his artwork to be poetry.